California Noir

A modern-day noir featuring a twisty cat-and-mouse chase, this dark debut thriller tells the story of a woman who makes a living taking down terrible men...then finds herself in over her head and with blood on her hands. The only way out? Pull off one final con.

She was leaning against the door. Her smile was a sickly twisted grimace; the sort a prisoner gives a judge when he's asked if he has anything to say before he's sentenced. Russell Haxby is a ruthless used-car salesman obsessed with manipulating and cavorting with married women. In this classic of hard-boiled fiction, Charles Willeford crafts a wry, sardonic tale of hypocrisy, intrigue, and lust set in San Francisco in the early '50s.

Prohibition. Mobsters, murder, and mayhem. FBI agents. Cops, robbers, and worse. Sound like the background for a Hollywood epic? It's Ernest Marquez's latest very true story of the renowned gambling ships that anchored in Santa Monica Bay in the 1920s and 1930s. It's the story of Tony Cornero, the cockiest gangster who ever bootlegged a bottle of scotch, the man who helped found Las Vegas, and the smooth operator of the most glamorous gambling ship in the Pacific, the Rex.

Re-released for the first time in years, the hit action-packed thriller features the unforgettable, original P.I. Mike Haller. P.I. Mike Haller is on the case to find a newsman who suddenly went missing in Sacramento Valley. A tearful, boozy wife has paid him to find her husband, but someone else is attempting to dissuade him - using a .38 with Haller's name and address on it.

An A&R hotshot fell in love with them upon hearing a few of their songs, and suddenly all the sweat and soul-draining self-promotion seemed worth it. The band got a call asking them to bring their haunting mix to Manhattan for a label showcase. It was the break of a lifetime. Out of cash and desperate to make it, they set themselves on a collision course with New York. It's a decision that forces each band member to consider just how badly he wants that record deal, and what he's willing to do to get it. No one will stand in their way. Not even each other.